


Bound to follow you down

by littlehollyleaf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Torture, Torture, basically - dark painful shit, or possibly hurt no comfort..., reference to Alistair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-15 15:40:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9242318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlehollyleaf/pseuds/littlehollyleaf
Summary: Sam and Dean track Cas down after Samandriel's death, finding him a prisoner at Naomi's mercy. Before they can free him Naomi's mind control needs removing, forcing Dean to put skills learnt from Alistair to use in the worst possible way.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Rolling Stones 'Torn and Frayed,' for obvious reasons.

**Bound to follow you down**

 

It didn't matter that the room was white. Gleaming and pristine. It didn't matter that the instruments were lined up on the steel trolley with surgical precision, all of them neatly parallel to each other with equal space apart. It didn't matter that the chair was clean, and the floor and the walls.

Dean knew a torture chamber when he saw one.

It might not be Alistair's style of horror, where the visual of the thing was half the torture itself, the sight and stench of blood and guts and everything else artfully layered on top of each session, intensifying the experience, immersing victims in their pain. But Dean can see how this would be equally terrifying. Removing the evidence each time, erasing every drop as it appeared, no trace of the crime, so in-between times you forget, start to wonder if there ever was any pain. Until it starts again. Keeping the fear fresh. A cold, encroaching terror instead of a visceral, immediate one.

Fitting, Dean thinks, that Heaven would do it this way. Wouldn't want to risk dirtying their lily white hands.

The room on its own is enough to turn him cold. To send a shiver, part disgust part sick hot longing, up his spine. But Cas lying limp in that creepy dentist chair in the centre, spotless shackles over each wrist, makes every breath a stab if ice to Dean's chest.

The cold increases as he rushes over, grabbing Cas by the shoulder and shouting his name.

Cas is motionless, eyes closed. Dean yells again, leans over and grips both his friend's arms, shaking as hard as he dares.

"Cas, buddy, come on! I'm gonna get you out of here."

When there's no response Dean reaches for Cas' face. He has a vague thought of checking a pulse, but mostly he's not thinking at all, he just needs Cas to wake up damn it, wake up! He's here isn't he? He found the guy. He and Sam pulled the right mojo, found a Scotty to beam them up here to, well, wherever. Their part of the rescue is done. So Cas needs to get the hell up and do his. He needs to get up so they can all get the fuck out of here.

But the skin Dean brushes with his fingertips is frozen. A shock of cold that has him snatching his hand away.

No. No. It's meaningless. This is Heaven. Probably. Hot, cold, soft, solid - those are abstracts here. Not real. No more than they needed to be for souls in Hell. This physical thing Dean's seeing - the strapped down body, the pants, the shoes, the coat - it's not there. It's just his mind making sense of the incomprehensible. It doesn't matter Cas is cold. It doesn't matter.

Only it does of course. If Cas feels cold it's for the same reason Dean is seeing him lying there without moving, the same reason the human eyes Cas doesn't have are closed. Whatever they've done to his true form translated into something Dean can understand.

And suddenly Dean's burning hot. Furious.

"Damn it, Cas!" he yells. "You can't -!"

He breaks off, hands balling into fists at his side.

You can't do this to me again. You can't do this to me _again_.

No. Stop. He can't lose it. Focus.

Tearing his eyes from Cas' prone form, Dean turns his attention to the metal cuff circling the angel's nearest wrist. He crouches down to examine it, running a thumb over the joints, looking for a lock. Picking a lock, yes, that's something he can do. Focus on that, just that. He can do that.

There isn't a lock. No lock, no button, no opening mechanism at all that Dean can see. The cuff seems to be an extension of the chair, each side merging seamlessly into the arm.

Dean sets his jaw, swallowing back helplessness.

He's trying to remember if there was a saw among the implements on the trolley when Cas' hand twitches. It's quick, so quick Dean thinks he might have imagined it, but then it happens again. Fingers, clawed round the end of the chair, flex away and back again.

"No, wait..." It's a weak muttering, nothing like the angel's usually deep intonations, but it's Cas.

Heart pounding, Dean presses a hand over Cas' flexing one and grips tight, his other resting on Cas' arm the opposite side of the cuff. He doesn't know if he's holding Cas out of relief, glad at this sign of life, or fear, that if he doesn't hold on these signs will slip away.

"Cas, hey, hey," he breathes, head snapping up.

Cas is rolling his head over the cushioned top of the chair. His lips are moving but words have dissolved into insensible noise.

"Hey," Dean says again, rubbing a hand up Cas' arm.

Cas gasps as he opens his eyes, staring about him wildly.

When he finds Dean at his side for a moment there is nothing but blank confusion on his face, then Cas blinks quickly several times, lines of awareness dawning on his brow.

"Dean?" he questions, voice clear. Although his fingers clench about Dean's palm for a fraction of a second. It might have been a spasm, nothing but an extension of Cas' confusion. But Dean squeezes back anyway, smiling as he does, offering what little comfort and reassurance he can. Cas doesn't smile back, but his eyes soften and some tension bleeds out of his shoulders. "How -?" Cas starts, then shakes his head, eyes growing wide. "You can't be here. Naomi. She—"

"Don't worry," Dean tells him. "Sam's taking care of it."

Cas frowns. Concern. The guy's strapped down in a freaking torture chamber and he's concerned about someone else's safety. Idiot.

"But—" Cas starts.

"You know how to get these off?" Dean interrupts, untangling from Cas' hand to pat the cuff. "Sooner we get you out of here, the sooner we can get Sam away from that bitch. Sooner we can find a way to gank her sorry ass. Angel blade didn't cut it."

"That's because she's not—" Cas winces, head falling back against the chair, eyes screwing up in pain. When he opens them again he's panting. "I can't—You have to get away from here, Dean. It's too dangerous."

"I'm not going anywhere without you," Dean answers. That's a no brainer. "But you're right, once you're free we're getting the hell out of dodge. We'll come back for this Naomi chick later."

"No. Dean. You don't understand." Cas pushes his upper body off the chair with his elbows, leaning as close to Dean as his restraints allow. His eyes are wide again and a little frantic. "I'm not—Dean, they've done things to me."

Dean tightens his grip on Cas' arm. Too many, far too many, possible 'things' they might have done to Cas springing all too easily to mind.

"I know," he says, the words thick on his tongue. "And they're gonna pay for it. Naomi. Whoever she's working for. They'll all get theirs. If they even try and _touch_ you again, Cas, I swear—"

"No!" Cas insists, an undercurrent of urgency in his tone that makes Dean pause. "Dean, listen. I'm not free, that's the problem. Do you see? I'm compromised."

"What are you talking about?"

"No matter where I go, where you take me, she will find me. She needs but issue a command and I _must_ obey. You—you've seen the things she can make me do."

Cas' eyes glisten, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows something back. Human grief, conveyed in human fashion, here, were Cas doesn't even have a human body to experience such things through. Dean doesn't know whether to be proud or horrified.

"Samandriel didn't—I was lying when I told you—"

"I know," Dean cuts in quickly, saving Cas from choking out the rest. "I know. We know it wasn't you, Cas. We'll figure it out. We just gotta get you out of here first."

He stands up, restless. They've been talking too long, Dean needs to be doing something.

"Is there a hidden switch somewhere?" he mutters, looking behind the head of the chair. "Something that'll—"

"She can make me do it again, Dean," Cas presses as Dean looks. "She could make me do worse. I could kill you next time. Sam."

"We won't let that happen."

"You won't be able to stop it. _Dean!_ "

The shout is so raw Dean can't help moving back to Cas' side. Cas' gaze isn't frantic anymore, but it's severe. Thin lipped and commanding.

"You have to leave me."

"No," Dean says at once. "Not an option."

"But I—"

" _No_ , Cas. We're not—We're not going through that again. This is not a discussion," Dean snaps. "Now do you know how to open these cuffs?" Cas stares at him in silence. Stubborn bastard. " _Cas!_ "

A weary sigh leaves Cas' lips.

"If you refuse to leave me—"

"I do, I refuse," Dean talks over him, since apparently the point isn't being made clear enough. He stares, unflinching, through the glare Cas gives in return.

"The... tools, behind you," Cas offers, finally.

Dean spins round and finds the trolley. 'Tools.' Yeah. That's one way of looking at them. He hurries towards them, scanning the array.

"What am I looking for?"

"Something sharp. A blade."

There's plenty of those, all lined up in size order for Dean's convenience. He reaches for one of the larger ones at the end, a kind of serrated scalpel, and turns with it in his hand.

"Good enough?" he asks, holding it up.

Cas parts his lips in an involuntary draw of breath, a flash of something crossing his face it takes Dean a moment to recognise. He's not used to seeing Cas afraid. Not like this. So vivid and unchecked. Like back at Crowley's warehouse with little Alfie screaming on the other side of that door and Cas backing away, crouching down, overcome. He'd thought it was the sigils, but it wasn't, was it? It was this. Memories of this Naomi breaking through, like ones of Alistair had done for Dean so long ago. Oh _someone's_ gonna fucking bleed for this, no mistake.

"Yes," Cas nods, voice turning very small.

Dean holds the blade to his side, less in Cas' line of sight, and moves forward.

"Okay, what do I do?"

There's a moment before Cas responds and Dean lets it pass.

"What do you see?"

"What?" Dean frowns.

"This... room, my restraints, me, how do you perceive it?"

Oh, right.

"Err. Well you're you. I mean, you're human. Strapped to a chair."

Cas nods along with this, like it's what he expected.

"You see my vessel, constrained as a man would be?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Then this will be easy to explain. What you're holding... you see it as a blade. It's more than that. It's... it's not of import. What matters is that you can use it as it appears. Like you would any angel blade. And it can... it can hurt me, my true form, in the same way the weapons of Heaven you are accustom to can. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, no," Dean shakes his head. "What's it matter what it can do to _you_ , Cas? What matters is can it cut through this chair? This... whatever I'm seeing as a chair. Can it get you out of here?"

The soft, sad look Cas gives him sets alarm bells ringing in Dean's head immediately. Dean knows that look. He knows it from Purgatory.

"It can set me free, yes," Cas answers, voice measured, and oh no, Dean doesn't like the sound of that at all. "Use it as you would to stab a man—"

" _Fuck,_ Cas!" Dean breathes, turning away, unable to look at his friend as he continues.

"- and it can kill an angel. It—"

"No. No way."

"- it can kill me."

"Don't be stupid."

"Dean, it's this or you leave me," Cas insists, eerily calm. "You can't take me with you, I'm a liability."

"No!" Dean whirls round, pointing the blade at Cas for emphasis as he speaks. He knows this detracts from what he's saying, he knows it, but he can't help it, he's livid. "No! You're not a liability, Cas. You're my _friend_. You're fucking _family_. And you can't ask me to do this, you can't."

"If there were another way—"

Dean rushes forward, grabbing at Cas' coat with his free hand, fingers twisting in the collar. He doesn't know if he's begging or making demands.

"Of _course_ there's another way! We'll find it, Cas. Just tell me how to get you out of here."

Cas presses his lips together and doesn't say anything.

Growling, Dean throws Cas against the chair and backs away. Cas just lies there, passive and waiting, and for one red hot second Dean's fist clenches tighter round the blade in his hand, everything he's feeling bubbling to a crescendo until he feels he might burst if he doesn't stab _something_. He turns with a yell instead and throws the knife back on the trolley, following the gesture up with a firm push with both hands. The instruments smash together in a way Dean finds pleasingly loud and distracting.

"Fuck you, Cas," he spits out. "I am _not_ doing this just to satisfy your stupid fucking death wish!"

Unfair? Dean knows it is. He's been where Cas is, he knows how it feels to want out so bad you've convinced yourself it's not only in your best interest but everyone else's. But that's _why_ he's shouting, why he's so mad right now he can't even see straight. Because if he isn't, if he actually thinks about his best friend, his only fucking friend, living through the same pain, the same soul crushing guilt Dean's been barely coping with for years, then how the fuck else is he supposed to deal with it?

How the fuck elseis he supposed to deal with this?

The metal rods and spikes and blades wink back at him in mocking answer. Well, there's one thing he can deal with. Grabbing the edge of the trolley in both hands, Dean flips it up and over so the whole thing crashes to the ground, everything on it clattering together into a disordered heap.

Breathing hard into the silence that follows everything Dean's been fearing rushes towards him in a flood, anger replaced by a desperate, painful ache. It starts in his gut, a deep, twisting sensation that makes him feel sick, then a clawing up his throat that makes his eyes burn as he fights to choke it back.

"Cas, I can't—"

I can't lose you. Not after Ben and Lisa, Ellen and Jo, Bobby, and now Benny.

Not _you_ , Cas. Don't make me lose you too.

The words fade to nothing. They didn't work before, not when Cas was high on monster souls, not when he was running from leviathan in Purgatory. Why should they make any difference now?

"Dean..." Cas whispers behind him. "It's not that... it's... complicated..."

Yeah. Every damn thing is complicated.

Dean misses Purgatory so freaking much sometimes.

He tunes Cas out after that, hearing him in patches. He doesn't want to know why killing his best friend is the _right_ thing to do.

He's scared he might agree. It's not like he hasn't gone there before.

"...I know I said... but..."

Something flashes in the pile on the floor. Dean wishes he could grind all the fuckers into dust. Wishes he didn't know the perfect use for every cruelly sharpened and curved piece of steel. Or fake steel. Whatever.

Except. That's not silver, that's... gold?

Glad of a distraction, Dean crouches down and picks his way through the macabre collection. There, half buried beneath the blades and tweezers, is a small jar of—Dean doesn't know. Something that glows. A golden light, but not warm. The more Dean looks at it, the colder he feels. Tired. Bone weary. Old.

A blink and shake of his head and the feeling passes. Dean can see the jar is cracked. It must have happened when it fell. Some of the gold is seeping out, wafting over what looks like a drill lying near by. Dean can't remember seeing either of these on the trolley—they were on a second shelf underneath maybe.

As he watches, the golden light curls in on itself, twisting into something solid. A thread.

It seems familiar. Something out of a half forgotten dream of another life. Dean pokes at it with a finger, then hisses as the thread wraps around him up to his knuckle, suddenly rigid. It digs into him like wire, and when Dean tries to shake it off his hand refuses to obey. As if that weren't bad enough, Dean's fingers start jerking of their own accord, his fist clenching and unclenching completely against Dean's will.

Panic starts up in the pit of Dean's stomach and spreads through him like wildfire. Grabbing the rebel limb with his other hand Dean tries to claw the string off with his nails, but he can't get a grip. Desperate measures then, he thinks, digging into the pile of metal until he finds something pointed. Dean thrusts the tip of the thing under the golden twist without a second thought, ignoring the way the point slices up his finger, blood dripping down and smearing over his palm. Once the tip is well under the coil Dean tugs upwards and, mercifully, the thread follows, peeling off him with a gruesome sucking sound. Dean throws the thread and metal spike away together. Once the coil hits the ground its light fades and it lies still.

Breathing hard from the sudden, unexpected, exertion, Dean wipes his bloodied hand down his jacket. It stings like fuck, but the cut's not deep, the flow of blood already starting to ebb. A small price to pay for control over his own body, all things considered. God, if that's what it's been like for Cas, it's no wonder he—

"...I'm being practical, that's all..."

"Cas, shut up!"

There's a glow on the drill. Dean didn't notice it before because it's duller. He picks the thing up and squints at it. Yeah, around the spiral. There's no thread there—now. But he'll bet anything—even the Impala—that there was at one time.

"No, Dean, you _must_ listen."

Cas sounds pissy now, but that's so low on Dean's list of concerns he hardly notices.

"Shut up," he says again, standing with the drill still in his hand. He holds it up for Cas to see. "Whatever she did to you, did she use this?"

But Cas fixes on the blood on Dean's hand and jacket. From the angle he's in on the chair he couldn't see what was happening down by the trolley, of course.

"What happened?"

"Doesn't matter. This—" Dean waves the drill. "Did she use it?"

The way Cas flinches is answer enough. Dean's marching over before Cas has even finished his quiet 'yes' in response.

Dropping the drill in Cas' lap, Dean takes the angel's face in both hands.

"What are you -?" Cas starts, jerking back against the cushioned leather, a tremor in his voice that makes Dean loosen his hold and pull back, enough to catch his friend's eye.

"Don't move," he says, keeping his voice soft this time and shifting his hands so he's not holding Cas so much as resting his palms either side of the angel's face.

The change relaxes Cas, a little at least, the wide circle of his eyes losing some of their shock. Dean looks between them. Which one was it?

"When we found you with Alfie," he murmurs, explaining. "Your eye was bleeding..."

"Yes. My vessel was damaged in the fight," Cas mutters, absently, as Dean continues to examine him.

"No it wasn't," Dean says, just as distracted. Right. It was the right. He remembers Cas wiping the tear track line of red away, unnervingly distant.

"It... no..." Cas repeats, speaking slowly, like the words are a struggle. "No it... it wasn't..."

Something flashes, faint, in the pupil of Cas' right eye. A speck of gold in the black.

Winching, Cas presses his eyes shut. But the light was there—Dean saw it.

He lets Cas go and steps back.

"I know how she's doing it," Dean says as Cas blinks his eyes open again, back to their usual blue. "She didn't do anything to you, Cas." Dean shakes his head, impatient as always with words, and the way they never work when he wants them to. "I mean, she didn't screw with your wiring. She LoJacked you. Drilled something in your head. That's how she's controlling you."

Cas' lips curl in distaste. Then he shakes his head in return.

"It doesn't matter how she's controlling me. The fact remains that she is."

"Of course it matters!" Dean leans in again, gripping Cas by a shoulder. "Cas, if there's something in you that shouldn't be, that means we can get it _out_. It means we can stop this!"

The glow in Cas' eyes this time is hearteningly real.

"How?" Cas asks.

At which point Dean falters, pulling back. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Then hesitantly reaches down and picks up the drill balanced over Cas' legs. He looks over it at Cas, holding the angel's gaze for less than a second before flicking his eyes down again, hot, uncomfortable pins and needles of adrenaline coursing up and down him.

"Same way she put it in, I guess."

There's a draw of breath. Ragged.

"You mean...?"

"Look, I could do it," Dean breathes in a rush, raising his head in what he hopes is a nod of reassurance, but suspects looks more on the side of creepy-insane. Because how the hell do you put a positive spin on this? "I could."

"Dean." Cas' voice jumps up an octave. Every line of his body now thrumming with tension, hands once again curled round the ends of the chair. "How can you? You know nothing of angel biology."

"I don't have to," Dean counters. He holds a hand up to gesture, to add weight to his words, but this just puts the drill between them again, both their eyes latching on to it. Dean swings his hands behind his back and keeps them still. "I can use anything in here like I would on a man, you said that. And cutting people up, that's..." Dean cuts off, appalled at the sound of his own words. It's no good is it? No matter how he says this, what he means is 'I know how to torture.' What he means is, 'let me cut you up.' But what choice do they have? "Believe me, I'm qualified," he finishes. Confession, not pride.

Even though he's trembling now, Cas doesn't take his eyes off Dean.

"I believe you..." he says, sounding as miserable as Dean feels.

"I know, I know," Dean starts, his words a contradiction, because he _doesn't_ know. He doesn't have the faintest _idea_ what he's trying to say anymore. "It's fucked up. And I won't pretend it'll be quick and easy, cos it won't be. It'll be... it'll suck, Cas... But it's better than this Naomi pulling your strings, isn't it? And it's better than dying, right?" Cas swallows. "Right?"

All Dean can do is watch, helpless, as Cas turns his face away, staring at the whitewashed wall on his other side.

Dean's thinking 'please, please say yes,' and in thinking it he tastes bile in his throat. 'Please let me save your life by torturing you'—what the fuck kind of friend is he to have let it come to this?

The moment solidifies into such silence it's like a hurricane when Cas takes a breath to speak.

"To lose my will... the burden of choice..." Cas says without turning, voice low. "There was a time I would have welcomed it... When I think about what I've done, the ways I abused my freedom, the cost... the guilt is... overwhelming. It fills me. Like a darkness. Obscuring everything else..."

"Cas..." Dean chokes, starting forward, then stopping as the weight of the drill in his hands reminds him he's in no position to offer comfort.

This is all wrong. This is not the time for this conversation. They should have talked about this long ago, somewhere private, somewhere safe. They almost did, on that cartoon case. Dean should never have let Sam interrupt them. He should have tried again. There are so many, so very many, things Dean should have done when it comes to Cas.

"It's alright," Cas continues, still staring at the wall. "I accept it. It's part of my penance. And despite it I... I was helping people. Not in big ways, but I was helping. And it felt... good. Knowing I was still capable of that. It felt like there was still a place for me in the world..."

Dean wants to say 'there'll always be a place for you.' But the words get stuck somewhere before even touching his lips.

"To lose that now. To have that power of choice taken from me... I'd rather be dead..."

Dean's throat seizes up.

Then Cas turns to him.

He should look small and helpless, strapped down like he is, lost in the enormity of that chair like a child. But somehow he doesn't. The way his eyes lift and fix on Dean, holding steady, makes him look strong. And brave. While the shadows beneath his eyes and heavy lines at the corners are far from childlike. They're marks that speak of weariness, maybe, but who of them hasn't started to grow weary of the world this point?

"But, Dean, the truth is... I... I don't _want_ to die."

He presses his lips together quickly once he's said it, like it's some shameful secret he wants to take back. Dean remembers sitting in the Impala with Sam a hundred lifetimes ago, the walls and windows feeling, for the first time, close and claustrophobic, air growing stale, as he uttered the same. I don't wanna die. I don't wanna go to Hell. Throat so tight he had to force the words out, body rebelling at such a show of weakness. Cas feels the same, Dean can see it in his eyes. Living through Dean's mistakes one by one like he's following a damn road map.

"So don't," Dean tells him, pacing to Cas' side in steps far more measured and controlled than he feels. "Just don't this time."

He touches Cas' arm with his free hand, wraps his fingers round the solid, living weight of his friend. Real enough to touch. To connect. Making them in this moment, one more in a chain stretching back longer than perhaps either of them realise, a part of each other. Two disparate lives, impossibly tangled. They shouldn't be, and yet here they are, able to reach out to each other and hold on nonetheless. And Dean doesn't want to let go. Not now. Not yet. Not ever.

Cas twitches his lips. You could hardly call it a smile, but the movement makes his face look softer, puts a warmth in his eyes.

"You trust me, don't you?" Dean asks. Whispers. He doesn't know why, but there's an intimacy between them here that seems to call for it.

Cas hesitates for a barely a second, then nods back.

"Yes," is the answer. Simple. Plain. Without conditions. It makes Dean's chest tight.

"Then trust me." Dean rubs a thumb across the fabric of Cas' coat, remembering the wet, heavy pull of it when he dragged it from the water, fingers growing slick as he'd folded it over, and over again. "I can do this." No. "We can do this."

A pause. A breath.

"Yes," Cas says again, this time in consent. Angel to human. "Yes."

They rest in the moment a second longer. Then Dean turns away and gets to work, setting the trolley upright again and refilling it—the drill, of course, he lays out first, then a quick rummage in the pile on the floor uncovers three or four more instruments that look promising; sharp, thin blades; something with a fine metal hook at the end; a large needle.

When he's got enough he grips either side of the trolley with both hands and leans forward, breathing deep. Oh god, can he do this? Can he really do this?

"Don't suppose there's an angel equivalent of chloroform?"

"No."

No. Of course not.

Cas sounds quiet, but there's no tremor to his answer. Dean doesn't know what that means. If Cas is resigned now, numb to the whole thing, or trying to hide his fear in bravado.

"I might..." Cas starts. "I might not be... sensible... when you finish. There's a mechanism below me. I believe it controls my restraints."

Dean closes his eyes. That was Cas' only bargaining chip, the only thing that's stopped Dean dragging the angel out of here already, kicking and screaming if necessary, Lojacked or not. And Cas is giving it up, because he trusts Dean to fulfil his side of the bargain in return.

That's it then. They're committed.

\---

The room isn't white when they're done. Dean's almost proud of that.

Except that the reddest parts are his hands. Blood and gore still warm when he unshackles Cas' arms, smearing crimson between them as he wraps his fingers round the angel's slack palms to tug him up.

The groan makes Dean start. They've been so long in silence by this point.

Terrible, deathly silence. Broken only by the click of metal and tearing of skin.

Dean doesn't know what was worse—when Cas started screaming, or when he stopped. Choking out weak, animal whimpers instead, fingernails scratching desperate grooves in the chair, legs kicking in mindless, instinctive response to the pain. Then nothing.

The quiet rushed in like a vacuum. Dean had almost botched his next cut it was so _loud_. But Cas' chest kept rising and falling in quick, shallow gasps, erratic puffs of breath warming Dean's wrist where he held it over his friend's parted lips. So turns out angels had a pain threshold then, and passed out when kept there too long, just like anyone. Dean tried to stay detached about that, tried to hold the knowledge in his mind as some distant, abstract thing. But his hands shook so badly when he came to continue he'd been forced to stop for long, precious seconds until he got himself back under control.

Glancing up, Dean finds Cas struggling to open his eyes. Well. Eye. His right one is more of a wet, gaping mess.

Abandoning his attempt to see, Cas rocks forward instead, trying to sit up. Dean moves a hand to Cas' shoulder to help, but this has the opposite effect—at the barest touch from Dean Cas jerks back with a cry, his one good eye stretching wide. Seeing Dean now, and the other hand Dean has clasped in Cas' own, Cas snatches his hand away and tries to scramble backwards.

Dean's stomach drops, clenching hard enough to cause pain. Though not nearly enough as Dean's deserves. Because he'd revealed in fear like this once, laughing at the souls who tried to escape him, happy, so fucking ecstatic, that of the two of them the frightened, agonised animal wasn't him.

But not _Cas._ He's never wanted, never imagined, to inspire such fear in _Cas._ It might as well be Sam fighting to get away from him the way it hurts seeing Cas cower like he is. Afraid of him. Stretching that space between them impossibly wide. Impassable this time, surely, and when they'd come so far across, bridging the distance inch by delicate inch since Purgatory.

Very deliberately Dean stands and steps back, hands held in front of him.

"Easy..." he rasps, for something to say.

Cas holds still, watching Dean closely, breathing as frantic as a frighten bird stolen from its nest. Then, after a moment, the breaths he takes deepen and his head tilts to one side, left eye squinting. Dean doesn't move. He remembers this part, the pain easing off just enough for conscious thought to filter back. Alistair used to stop for that, letting Dean gather his thoughts just enough to re-learn the terror of anticipation, before moving in again, tearing Dean apart in ways Dean's newly restored imagination couldn't even conceive of.

Dean takes a step back, keeping his hands high. He can at least spare Cas that.

"Is it... done?" Cas splutters, coughing up more blood.

"Yeah," Dean tells him. "It's over."

Blood wells up in the remains of Cas' right eye, gumming his lashes together, and Cas lifts a hand to wipe the spot. He moans at the touch, but doesn't stop, rubbing his hand down to try and clear some of the damage from the rest of his face.

A stutter of relief leaves Dean as he watches torn flesh knit slowly back together under Cas' hand, the angel's eye blinking into shape again, a hint of blue returning to the bloodshot white. He'd been afraid the trauma might have affected Cas too badly for his healing mojo to kick in. That's something at least.

Though all of him trembles from the effort, Cas manages to sit up and swing his legs over the side of the chair. Dean starts forward, then stops himself, forcing his hands to his sides to keep himself from helping as Cas pushes, hesitantly, to his feet.

"Where...?" Cas asks, not quite able to meet Dean's eye. Dean nods to the trolley, where his handpicked tools lie scattered in a palette of red, splotches of varying size and consistency pooling out under each. The one with the hooked end now has a fine piece of thread curled around it, still glowing.

Cas totters over and stares at it.

"It's so small," he says eventually and Dean is glad to hear his voice sounds stronger. He's healing fast. Physically at least. "I... I killed Samandriel, my brother, because of _this?_ "

The words curl with bitterness, a self-loathing Dean is all too intimate with.

" _Yes_ ," Dean says firmly. "Because of that. It's not on you, Cas. Alfie, he knew that as much as anyone."

The noise Cas chokes back sounds painfully like a sob. Dean hates that he knows what Cas sounds like when he sobs now. Nearly as much as he hates knowing how Cas sounds when he's screaming in agony. Though not as much as he hates knowing the sound of Cas begging for mercy, for Dean to stop, please, just stop.

He'd made the mistake of trying to comfort then. Muttering nonsense like 'it's okay, it's okay Cas, it'll be over soon' and freeing up a hand to squeeze one of Castiel's clawing ones. None of it helped. How could it? It wasn't okay. Nothing was okay. And Cas couldn't hear him anyway, all he knew was the pain. Besides which, losing a hand only lessened Dean's precision, risked causing worse damage than he already was, and Cas had gripped Dean's hand so tight Dean feared he'd break the bone. He'd ended up wrenching his hand away while Cas screamed on—no, no, please!

Fighting his grief must have torn at still sensitive nerves, because Cas puts a hand to the side of his head after, gasping and swaying.

Dean holds out his hands to catch the angel, stopping just shy of touching. He's still far from convinced his touch would be welcome, even to break a fall.

But Cas turns and grasps Dean's arms on instinct, using Dean for balance.

Dean stands frozen as Cas rights himself, not even curling his fingers to give Cas better support, not wanting to risk any movement that might be misinterpreted as a threat.

Chest heaving, Cas finally regains his equilibrium, eyes trailing over the place his arms meet Dean's and up and up to Dean's face. His own looks fully healed now, dirty with clotted blood and sweat, but whole. Two blue eyes looking deep, deep into Dean. Seeing things, _knowing_ things, better than anyone, even Sam. Pain. Perversion. Depravity. Dean can only stare back, all of him laid bare, and all of Cas too.

Then Cas circles his fingers about Dean's forearms, holding on. Not from necessity this time. This time it's a choice.

Dean's eyes lose focus for a moment as he grips back and he has to blink them clear.

"I got you," he murmurs, seeing in the way Cas lifts his head that the same memory dawning on him with the words is playing back for the angel as well.

Only this time Cas steps closer, instead of falling away. This time, he nods Dean on.

This time, when Dean leads them both out, Cas doesn't let go.

And as bad as things are, Dean can't help but take heart from that.

 

**~ fin ~**


End file.
